July 09, 2010

How Do You Solve a Problem Like John Stossel?

Remember in the Sound of Music, when the nuns sing, “How do you
solve a problem like Maria?” … “How do you find a word that means Maria?A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp!
A clown”?

I’m not quite sure what
a flibbertijibbet exactly is, but I do know a will-o'-the wisp clown when I see
one.That would be the Fox Business
Network's new Thursday night start, John Stossel.John Stossel is a problem that clearly needs solving.

Take his latest weird diatribe last night (“Parasitic Tort
Lawyers”)
and accompanying column, which he begins with the words, “Tort lawyers lie.”And he then goes on to trash the entire
profession of attorneys who try to hold corporate wrongdoers accountable in
court on behalf of injured people.I suppose that might be believable coming from a guy who once said “Enron
is an example of how well the market worked for people.”Except well, turns out, like all good
hypocrites, he has no problem running to court himself when he feels like it, like when he once sued a pro wrestler who hit him after Stossel
implied pro wrestling was fake, and he got $200,000 for his pain and
suffering.

So I guess Stossel’s problem isn’t himself.It’s everybody else who uses the court - and their attorneys who “say their product liability suits are good for us. But
their lawsuits rarely make our lives better.” OK let’s see.

How about lawsuits that have saved thousands of womens’
lives?
How about just children? Communities living around toxic
pollution?
Food safety?
(Even CNN’s Sanjay Gupta came through on this one.)Cars, airplanes, cleaning products, we could go on – and on
– and on.And actually we did, a
few years ago, here.

When he says all
the fun of playgrounds and such were “taken away” because of lawsuits – that’s a lie.

Comments

Almost forever has John Stossel been against accident victims. He's the type to skulk around and video a disability claimant doing yardwork, and then attacking the entire tort system. It is my opinion that he is in the pocket of the insurance industry and been for a long time. I bellieve that he is biased, biased, biased.

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